Fetal Neurobehavioral Development

Abstract

The ontogeny of fetal autonomic, motoric, state, and interactive functioning was investigated longitudinally in a sample of 31 healthy fetuses from 20 weeks through term. Fetal heart rate and movement data were collected during 50 min of doppler-based fetal monitoring at 6 gestational ages. Measures of fetal heart rate and variability, activity level and vigor, behavioral state, and reactivity were derived from these digitized data. Weighted least squares analyses were conducted to model the developmental patterns and to examine the role of maternal and fetal covariates. With advancing gestation, fetuses displayed slower heart rate, increased heart rate variability, reduced but more vigorous motor behavior, coalescence of heart rate and movement patterns into distinct behavioral states, and increasing cardiac responsivity to stimulation. Male fetuses were more active than female fetuses, and greater maternal stress appraisal was associated with reduced fetal heart variability. An apparent period of neurobehavioral transition exists between 28 and 32 weeks. Fetal research methods are evaluated.

Complementary and Non-Coincident Increases in Heart Rate Variability and Irregularity during Fetal Development

“…While such a possibility exists, it does not negate the findings of different developmental courses for heart rate patterning, which is prerequisite for development of state integration. Further, no gender differences in the development of fetal states in this data set have been detected [19].…”

“…SD increased with gestation age, but did not differ significantly with fetal gender. DiPietro et al [19] have previously demonstrated that the increase in SD of heart rate is associated with a coalescence of heart rate and movement patterns into distinct behavioural states, with a transition period occurring between 28 and 32 weeks. Irregularity (as measured by normalized ApEn) increased with gestational age in the male fetuses but not female fetuses, with male fetuses demonstrating significantly lower irregularity at 20 weeks gestation Heart rate is under the control of both neural and non-neural factors, including the sympathetic, parasympathetic, renin-angiotensin and thermoregulatory systems.…”

Maternal panic disorder: Infant prematurity and low birth weight

“…Schneider, Clarke and colleagues found in nonhuman primates that infants of mothers who were stressed during pregnancy were smaller for gestational age and also showed other differences suggestive of anxiety (Clarke, Soto, Bergholz, & Schneider, 1996;Schneider, 1992). Research with humans has also determined that maternal stress during pregnancy affects fetal responses (DiPietro, Hilton, Hawkins, Costigan, & Pressman, 2002;DiPietro, Hodgson, Costigan, & Hilton, 1996) in a manner consistent with inducing higher reactivity (Kagan, 1994) and perhaps anxiety. In addition, O'Connor, Heron, Golding, Beveridge, and Glover (2002) found that antenatal maternal anxiety predicted child behavior problems, even after controlling for postnatal anxiety.…”

Permutation entropy improves fetal behavioural state classification based on heart rate analysis from biomagnetic recordings in near term fetuses

“…As can be seen from Table 1, heart rate patterns account for a reasonable state determination particularly towards term when developmental synchronisation is high [ 9,21,23].…”

“…The patterns have been categorised into four determined fetal behavioural states from around 34 weeks of gestation, namely, by means of heart rate patterns, the occurrence of eye movements and of gross body movements in accordance with observations in the newborn [9,21,28]. In general, a shifting window of 3 min length is used for polygraphic analysis [12,21,28].…”